


nothing ventured, nothing gained

by Zerrat



Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3829204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/pseuds/Zerrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fifth time the woman sauntered into the coffee shop - hips swaying, heavy blonde curls tumbling down her back, her heels a confident staccato on the scuffed-up ceramic tiles - Zero knew for sure something was up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing ventured, nothing gained

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_in_translation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_in_translation/gifts).



> Zero/Five, Drakengard 3, “Are you flirting with me?”
> 
> I wish I was sorry for inflicting a coffeeshop AU on this fandom but the reality is that I'm not sorry at all.

The fifth time the woman sauntered into the coffee shop - hips swaying, heavy blonde curls tumbling down her back, her heels a confident staccato on the scuffed-up ceramic tiles - Zero knew for sure something was up. 

The cafe she worked in was a fucking hole in the wall. It was a _dive,_ frequented by idiots and shit-poor students with an even poorer taste in caffeine hits, if they swallowed Zero’s grudging attempts without complaint. The woman, with her graceful ease, pale wrap coat, the flashes of gold at her wrist, ears and throat, was exactly the sort of clientele that walked on by. The burnt out neon lights at the front of the store and the yellowed welcome sign had more than saw to that. 

Zero’s lip curled as she watched the woman approach. Whatever the woman’s game was, though, her cash was as green as anyone else’s. That’s what Michael would have been reminding her. 

She still wasn’t going to fucking _greet_ the woman. One hello was more than enough for a day.

“More of the same, then?” Zero asked, her tone both bland and bored, and she didn’t bother meeting the woman’s eyes as she began to tap in the order on Michael’s ancient, piece of shit sales system. 

“If you’d be so kind,” the woman replied, her tone light, amused and almost… lyrical. God. It gave Zero a headache just listening to that much. There were a few beats of silence as Zero struggled with the sales system, the woman’s gaze practically a physical caress on her skin. “You’re not going to ask me my name, then?”

“Does it look like I need it?” Zero snapped, waving an irritable hand at the cafe’s obvious lack of patrons. There was a group of students from the university down the road, but the establishment had been deserted. But for the woman’s seemingly endless thirst for coffee, the day had been a dead one. 

She didn’t seem off-put by Zero’s brusque manner, however, merely humming beneath her breath and drumming those long fingertips on the countertop. Zero barely stifled the urge to tell her to quit it - she’d only _just_ wiped down the stainless steel surface!

The woman shifted when Zero finally got the register working, leaning the rich curve of her hip against the edge of the counter. Unbidden, Zero’s eyes grazed down the delicate column of the woman’s throat and to the swell of her breasts, just hinted beneath the layers of coat. 

Zero’s mouth tightened. It had to have been the way the woman was standing, subtly provocative, as if openly challenging Zero to stare. 

_Give me a fucking break._

Zero set to work on the woman’s over-complicated drink without further comment, seething internally and dying of curiosity. There was absolutely no reason for the woman to have come in for the first time, and Zero’s sub-standard coffee skills were certainly not enough to warrant five visits in as many hours. It set Zero’s teeth on edge and ignited a fire in her stomach, even had the woman not been so blatantly watching her work! 

_Who the fuck does she think she is, anyway? Some fucking bigshot from the business district? Some pretty heiress?_

She didn’t _care._ She finished off the woman’s drink with the last few haphazard flourishes of spices and caramel, eager to be done with the woman and her shift as well. It was only when she passed the woman her coffee that she bothered to look up. The woman’s amber eyes were like fire, boring into Zero’s own, and the brush of her fingers lingered against the back of Zero’s hand as she accepted the coffee. 

Despite herself, Zero’s breath caught. It pissed her off. 

“Who the fuck are you, anyway?” she asked, venom in her tone. Michael and his ‘good manners’ could go fuck themselves. He wasn’t supervising this shift. “Aren’t you gonna earn yourself a heart attack with all this coffee?”

“I’m certainly hoping to earn myself something,” the woman replied, sipping at her obscenely complicated, sickeningly sweet drink. She tucked golden curls behind her ear then, all languid grace. “Perhaps you strike me as someone worth knowing.”

From the curl of the woman’s full, painted red lips and the heavy emphasis she’d placed on _knowing_ , there was little doubt as to what she’d really meant. A thrill ran up and down Zero’s spine at just the thought, and for a moment, she wondered how those soft golden curls would feel knotted between her fingers.

“Are you flirting with me?” Zero asked, her one good eye narrowing. 

The woman’s smile widened then, and there was a purr in her voice when she countered, “Do you want me to be?”

Zero’s mouth twisted, somewhere between a smirk and a scowl. “I don’t care what you do when I’m on the clock. Just hurry up and fucking pay.” 

The woman’s amber eyes flickered down, then, to where Zero wore her faded nametag on her chest. After a moment, she looked up, tapping her fingernail on the top of her latest coffee’s lid. 

“Then we’ll save it for when you get off, shall we?” The woman drew a note from her breast pocket with a twist of her wrist, sliding it across the stainless steel countertop. 

It was too much - as fucking usual, with this woman - but Zero snatched it up regardless. Before she could think to gather the change, the woman turned away with a long sigh, waving a hand in farewell as she left. 

There was something hidden beneath the note, and Zero thumbed it out quickly. A business card, pristine and pretentious, but there was both a name and a number, and Zero couldn’t help but narrow her good eye. She listened to the click of the woman’s heels on the tiles, listened to them falter just by the door. When Zero looked up, the woman’s eyes were still heated, her smile disturbingly predatory. 

“You can call me whatever - and whenever - you like, Zero,” the woman told her, the name far too familiar on the twist of her tongue. “But it’s rude to keep a lady waiting long, you know.”

Zero looked back down to the card in her hands, snorting under her breath. “With how forward you are, I doubt you’re any sort of _lady._ ”

When she looked up once again, the woman was gone, Zero’s words falling unheard by their intended target. 

Irritation spiked up in her chest at the wasted taunt, and she turned the card over in hands, tempted to simply bin the damned thing. There was a lipstick stain on the back, of course, in the same shade of red the woman had been wearing. Despite the disgusted groan that worked its way free of Zero’s lips, she slipped it into her pocket. 

She’d get her chance to tell this woman - _Five,_ of all the unlikely, idiotic names - exactly what she thought of her damn proposition when she called later.

**Author's Note:**

> Potentially to be continued???


End file.
